Requests From Soldiers

Warren Fowler letter seeking help, 1863

Warren Fowler of the 15th Maine Regiment wrote to the Maine Agency of the U.S. Sanitary Commission in January 1863 seeking back pay to send to his wife.

Fowler, about whom few records exist, apparently was in a hospital and described his condition as "filth and misery." He wrote, "I am very unwell -- almost am quite a cripple sleeping on the naked floor i have no clothes to change..."

He wrote that he had been at the facility for three months and that "i wish i was well it would be pleasure to me to meet the enemy in preference to what i suffer."